Saturday, September 13, 2014

Movie Review: Finding Fanny

When I saw the trailers of Finding Fanny , I was reminded of Little Miss Sunshine. And don't take me wrong; I mean it in a good sense, and not that I am saying that I felt that it was 'inspired' from that movie. I expected something fresh , something natural coming out this time. I expected, well, a bit too much. And the reason why I considered to write this post is because I believe there are many out there like me who would have had the similar level of expectations from the movie.

The reason: Finding Fanny is a case of smart marketing where the Indian audience is hungry for fresh and original content, which matches the international standards. We are embracing the offbeat topics shown in our movies more, we like it when noir films like Citylights are presented to us now. This is a good sign, because this will encourage many makers to make movies that we would feel proud to call out, when we give examples of the movies made by our industry. So naturally, we would expect conviction of delivering what is promised to us.

Finding Fanny begins on a monotonous note, has some humor sprinkled here and there, loses purpose mid-way and ultimately falls flat by the end . I am not saying that I wanted the plot to be incredible because we have a strong ensemble cast here, but if you want it to be a road movie, then what's the harm in sticking to the basics?

Director Homi Adajania didn't nourish the film well, the way he did with Being Cyrus ( I doubt he will ever be able to reach the brilliance of Being Cyrus in any of his upcoming films) . He knows a lot about direction- the color palette is all perfect, the camera work, the setting , all great- he just doesn't seem to get a hang of what we call , er , telling a story. The final 20-25 minutes seemed as if he wanted to close many loops and simply finish his project, and that's sad because the movie seems to be incentive-driven, the basic idea which is: our heroes are out there, trying to find the lost love of 46 years of one of them . The dilation of the pupils, when Naseeruddin Shah dreamily expresses his joy in anticipation of getting closer to his Fanny, the close-ups when Deepika speaks about her life , the quip scenes when Pankaj Kapur tries to steal a physical contact with Dimple Kapadia- direction is working really well all throughout, but all that I couldn't see was the conviction, the same conviction in the work of the story-teller.

I don't mind having a movie with no storyline if it makes sense and gives me a feeling of accomplishment, but I would definitely crib if a movie reeks of negligence in places where things should have been taut , simply because in many other departments it is appearing to be a promising venture.

In a nutshell: Finding Fanny requires a lot of patience, lowering of expectations and a mindset where you tell yourself that be happy and content with what you're being offered, because the moment you begin to expect, the next frame will be full of brush-strokes of disappointments.

Oh and, watch Little Miss Sunshine, if you haven't, just to put things into perspective.